Blake's 7

Blakes 7 was launched in 1978 by the BBC, and in the aftermath of 'Star Wars'. I remember eagerly awaiting Thursday evenings when the adventures of Blake and his crew would enthrall me.

The premise of the series was simple; Blake and his band, prisoners of the evil federation, manage to gain control of a powerful alien spaceship, and become freedom fighters.

The series was very low budget, reflected in the poor quality of the sets (spot the egg boxes sprayed silver!!), but the characters were real (despite the occasional wooden acting), and the storylines were first class.

What helped to make the series a success was the perfect chemistry between the cast. There was the fiery passion of Blake, the cold logical Avon, the laid back Villa to name a few. Their Arch enemy, Servalan, was ruthlessly ambitious, and assisted by the focussed and determined Travis.

I would give this series 9/10.

Despite the somewhat clunky special effects and plastic sets and costumes this series has always had a devoted following. Its plot lines, its witty and sharp dialogue, and the development of the characters seems to make you want more; and for 52 episodes 'more' is what we get. Splendid performances by all the major participants, this series has all the qualities you might wish for in a good book. You just have to keep 'turning the page'. For my money this is more fun than the old "Doctor Who" series (although the new Doctor Who series is another matter - fabulous!) The BBC, it seems to me, has always been lucky in having good writers for Sci-Fi. Right from Nigel Kneale (Quatermass, 1953 onwards) to Terry Nation and others. Great fun and completely addictive.

I was 8 years old when Blake's 7 first aired on BBC 1 and I loved it.

I was a fan of DR.Who so I liked Blake's 7 also. I have been watching it recently on UK Gold and it has brought back fond memories. Admittedly the Special Effects were very low budget just like DR.Who-You could always spot the shaky badly handpainted sets! The acting was a mix of good and bad, Avon (Paul Darrow) was excellent as was Servalan (Jaqueline Pearce) and Villa (Michael Keating) was very good also. Some episodes were really good and the script was great with some great dialogue by Avon. If you can overlook the very poor effects and men in rubber suits dressed as monsters then this was overall a great show.The last episode was a great cliffhanger although it upset me when I first saw it. I would love to see the series remade with Paul Darrow and the others-we never did know whether or not Avon and company died or not, so it could be remade. This was a classic series!

This is quite simply the coolest sci-fi series of all time. It is easy to laugh at the sets and effects in these days of CGI, but it was good entertaining fun when it came out. Gareth Thomas played the Blake of the title, who whizzed round the universe with his crew of outlaws, trying to avoid the Federation. The leader of the Federation, Servalan, was a strong, scary woman who thought nothing of stabbing her allies in the back. In contrast to series such as Doctor Who, the female cast members werent just "screamers" - they all had their own specific and useful skills, such as Cally (Jan Chappell) who had psychic powers and Jenna (Sally Knyvette), an expert pilot. Watching it now brings back many memories, but it does stand up even now. Inspired!

For those of us weaned on Doctor Who, shows like Blake's 7 are instantly appealing. But for today's audiences, try this trick:

Listen closely to the dialogue and notice how the acting--unlike the SFX--is quite good. Then imagine that George Lucas, Jerry Bruckheimer and any actor you admire collaborated on a faithful remake, line for line, with top-level effects. Can you see it? (May require more than one viewing.)

Good. Prior to Battlestar Galactica on TV and Star Wars on the big screen, this is about all we had in terms of production values. (We were lucky if the boom mics were not showing at the top of the screen.) We had to make do with fascinating story ideas and characters we could inhabit each week. If the monsters were made of rubber, the spaceships made of cardboard, well, we lived with it.

Note to Spielberg, Bruckheimer, Lucas, et al: Keep the script stet and consider giving these back to the world.